PS 1185 
.C42 

1878 


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Ncr^v-York, D , Appletoii 8e C o . 



{jin^xAXjuX*^ CV^. 



BRYANT MEMORIAL MEETING 



/ 

OF THE CENTURY 



Tuesday Evening, November 12th, i8j8 



v^ •«- 



Ceiitxtvij ^uanxs 

EW 



NEW YORK 



J 



/^N the 20th of June, 1878, the Board of Manage- 
^-^ ment of the Century, resolved that a memorial 
meetinof of its members should be held in honor of 
their late President, William Cullen Bryant. 

A committee consisting of F. F. Marbury, John 
Bigelow, E. S. Van Winkle, D. Huntington, and A. R. 
Macdonough, was appointed to make arrangements to 
carry this resolution into effect. 

The meeting was held on Tuesday Evening the 
12th of November, 1878, at the rooms of the Century, 
which were decorated for the occasion with numerous 
portraits of Mr. Bryant and paintings illustrative of 
his works. 

In pursuance of a resolution of the board, the pro- 
ceedings of the meeting are now published. 

Amonor the letters received, in answer to invitations 
to attend the meetino-, the followino- in consideration 
of the ao^e, the distino^uishecl character of the writer, 



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2. U. \\ . IhiiiiiAUh .... AulmiiM, 

" ./r. /'-';.•// ./// fi'vAv/z/f*, At'iiv^n'x tft'litioux hvi/Z/t, 

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/ /irhtx' iffta^^ 0/ our ot<>n hrif^ht /iUhi." 



4. A. II. WVANT . . . . I,.iiu1m.i|u' 

" //■///'/',' tfo:o (he solf'mii sh>t^li\ 

/■<7.////i* 0Hif ^i^ioom, tc/tf'h' nmnv htttuhf'x iiuwt ; 

S(>\t,ril/('/'n/ tohr-ft tlh^ HOON t>/ SNfNfUi'r NhhU 

/'/-,• :'a}/n-s siik with /not," 

5. S. I''. 11. M(»USK . . I'oih.nl (•! r.iN.ml. iS.*;' 

6. A 1; I )iiu \Nl» . . . " " 

7. r. I I ( 1 I \k . " " I'^^y'' 

8. S. K ( 111 I oK'M \iiliiinn 1 ,,iiul'.« .iiM- 

" / ;oi\\/t t/hif /iit,- /uhi' /.-// ffh- //iV^ 

'/'o totnhti'r thi'st' ifttitt hoHntx toit/i thet\ 
't'ill thf- (•iitufx t'OK'x 0/ f'.tirt/i shotiU (/./(///, 
,///(/ the /.'./(V ('/ Mr' yi('nr f^dss into tnv hcort ; 
A Hi/ I otvy thy stironi tix it i^li>i<-\ ./.',';/..•. 
'/'hri'tixh thf' />('<! ti t i/N / t>iiK^\\\ 
In y\ ttiUin' 0/ xOHti." 

i). TjicM A . I Ik. KS . . r.. Ill, III (il r.i \ .ml. 1 '",.' 



12. 


E. 


L. 


Henry 


13- 


S. 


R. 


GiFFORD 


14. 


J- 


L. 


Fitch 



8 

10. J. F. Cropsey ..... Landscape. 

" AuroTa, rosy-fiiigered, looked abroad ^ 

11. Jervis McEntee ..." November." 

" There comes, from yonder height 
A soft repining sound. 
Where forest leaves are bright, 
A nd fall, like flakes of light. 
To the groiC7id." 

" A Summer Morning." 
Portrait of Bryant, — 1860. 

A Mountain Brook. 

" The rivulet 
Sends forth glad sounds, and 

Tripping o'er its bed 
Of pebbly sands, or leaping 

Down the rocks 
Seems, with continuous latighter. 

To 7'ejoice 
In its ozon being.'" 

15. Jervis McEntee ..." Autumn." 

" Oh Autumn I why so soon 

Depart the hues that make thy forests glad. 
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon, 
And leave thee tvild and sad? " 

16. J. L. Fitch .... Forest Interior. 

' ' Father, thy hand 
Plath reared these venerable columns, thou 
Didst 7veave this verdant roof. 
Thoti didst look upon the naked earth. 
And forthwith rose all these fair ranks of trees.'' 

17. G. H. Hall ... An Oven in Pompei. 

18. G. H. Hall . Portrait of John Adams' Daughter — after 

Copley. 

19. W. Homer .... On the Seashore. 

' ' Seek'st thou the plashy brink 

Of weedy lake, or marge of Hver wide. 
Or ivhere the rocking billows ■> ise 

And sink 
On the chafed ocean side ? " 



20. A. B. DuRAND . Landscape — with Portrait Group of 

Bryant and Cole. 

21. T. B. Bristol ..." Green River." 

" When breezes are soft and skies are fail , 
I steal an hour from study attd care. 
And hie me azvay to the woodland scene 
Where wanders the stream with waters of green. '^ 

22. L. C. Tiffany . . Scene in Chambers Street. 

" Oh ! glide atvay from those abodes, that bjing 
Pollution to thy channel'' 

23. J. D. Smillie .... Drawing. 

" Knoiv ye no sadness when the hurricane has swept,'' etc. 



II 



PROGRAM. 



1 MUSIC Overture to Goethe s '' Egmonf BeetJwven. 

2 POEM . . . BAYARD TAYLOR. 

3 MUSIC Trail merei Schumann. 

4 ORATION . . . JOHN BIGELOW. 

5 MUSIC Marche funchre Chopin. 

6 POEM . . . R. H. STODDARD. 

7 MUSIC Nocturne yungmann. 

8 POEM . . . E. C. STEDMAN. 

9 MUSIC Selection from '' Tannhduser'' JVagner. 



Music under the direction of Prof. F. I. EBEN. 



13 

POEM BY BAYARD TAYLOR. 



EPICEDIUM. 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 



Read by A. R. Macdonough. 
I. 

Say, who shall mourn him first, 
Who sang in days for Song so evil-starred, 
Shielding from adverse winds the flarne he nursed,- 

Our Country's earliest Bard ? 

For all he sang survives 
In stream, and tree, and bird, and mountain-crest, 
And consecration of uplifted lives 

To Duty's stern behest ; 
Till, like an echo falling late and far 
As unto Earth the answer from a star, 
Along his thought's so nigh unnoted track 

Our people's heart o'ertakes 
His pure design, and hears him, and awakes 

To breathe its music back ! 
Approach, sad Forms, now fitly to employ 
The grave sweet stops of all melodious sound, — 

Yet undertoned with joy ; 
For him ye lose, at last is truly found. 



H 



II. 



Scarce darkened by the shadow of these hours, 
The Manitou of Flowers, 
Crowned with the Painted-cup, that shakes 
Its gleam of war-paint on his dusky cheek, 

Goes by, but cannot speak ; 
Yet tear, or dew-drop 'neath his coronal breaks. 

And in his drooping hand 
The azure eyelids of the gentian die 

That loves the yellow autumn land ; 
The wind-flower, golden rod, 
With phlox and orchis, nod ; 
And every blossom frail and shy 
No careless loiterer sees. 
But poet, sun and breeze, 
And the bright countenance of our western sky. 
They knew who loved them : they, if all 

Forgot to dress his pall. 
Or strew his couch of long repose, 
Would from the prairies and the central snows 

The sighing West-wind call. 
Their withered petals — even as tears, to bear, 

And, like a Niobe of air, 
Upon his sea-side grave to let them fall ! 



15 



III. 



Next you, ye many Streams, 
That make a music through his cold, green land ! 

Whether ye scour the granite slides 
In broken spray-light or in sheeted gleams, 

Or in dark basins stand. 
Your bard's fond spirit in your own abides. 

Not yours the wail of woe. 
Whose joy is in your wild and wanton flow, — 

Chill, beautiful Undines 
That flash white hands behind your thicket-screens, 
And charm the wildwood and the cloven flumes 

To hide vou in their crlooms ! 
But he hath kissed you, and his lips betray 
Your coyest secrets ; now, no more 
Your bickering, winking tides shall stray 
Through August's idle day, 
Or showered with leaves from brown November's floor, 
Untamed, and rich in mystery 

As we were wont to be ! 
From where the dells of Graylock feed 
Your thin, young life, to where the Sangamon 
Breaks with his winding green the Western mead. 
Delay to hasten on ! 
Ask not the clouds and hills 



i6 

To swell the veins of your obedient rills, 

And brim your banks with turbid overflow ; 
But calmly, soothly go, 

Soft as a sigh and limpid as a tear, 
So that ye seem to borrow 
The voice and the visage of sorrow, 

For he gave you glory and made you dear ! 

IV. 

Strong Winds and mighty Mountains, sovereign Sea, 

What shall your dirges be ? 
The slow, great billow, far down the shore. 
Booms in its breaking : " Dare — and despair! " 
The fetterless winds, as they gather and roar, 
Are evermore crying : '' Where, oh wdiere ? " 
The mountain summits, with ages hoar, 
Say : '* Near and austere, but far and fair ! " 

Shall ye in your sorrow droop, 
Who are strong and sad, and who cannot stoop ? 
Two may sing to him where he lies. 
But the third is hidden behind the skies. 

Ye cannot take what he stole, 
And made his own in his inmost soul! 

The pulse of the endless Wave 
Beauty and breadth to his strophes gave ; 

The Winds with their hands unseen 



Held him poised at a height serene ; 

And the world that wooed him, he smiled to o'ercome it 

Whose being the Mountains made so strong, — 
Whose forehead arose like a sunlighted summit 

Over eyes that were fountains of thought and song 

V. 

And last, ye Forms, with shrouded face 
Hiding the features of your woe, 
That on the fresh sod of his burial-place 

Your myrtle, oak and laurel throw, — 
Who are ye ? — whence your silent sorrow ? 
Strange is your aspect, alien your attire : 
Shall we, who knew him, borrow 
Your unknown speech for Griefs august desire ? 

Lo ! one, with lifted brow 
Says, '' Nay, he knew and loved me : I am Spain ! " 
Another, " I am Germany, 
Drawn sadly nearer now 
By songs of his and mine that make one strain, 
Though parted by the world-dividing sea ! " 
And from the hills of Greece there blew 
A wind that shook the olives of Peru, 

Till all the world that knew. 
Or, knowing not, shall yet awake to know 
The sweet humanity that fused his song, — 



The haughty challenge unto Wrong, 
And for the trampled Truth his fearless blow, — 

Acknowledged his exalted mood 
Of faith achieved in song-born solitude, 

And give him high acclaim 
With those who followed Good, and found it Fame! 



VI. 



Ah, no ! — why should we mourn 
The noble life that wore Its crown of years ? 
Why drop these tender, unavailing tears 
Upon a fate of no fulfilment shorn ? 

He was too proud to seek 
That which should come unasked ; and came, 
Kindling and brightening as a wind-blown flame 
When he had waited long, 
And life — but never art — was weak, 
But youthful will and sympathy were strong 
In white-browed eye and hoary-bearded cheek ; 
Until, when called at last 
That later life to celebrate, 
Wherein, dear Italy, for thine estate, 
The glorious Present joined the glorious Past, 

He fell, and ceased to be ! 
We could not yield him grandlier than thus, 



19 

When, for thy hero speaking, he 

Spake equally for us ! — 
His last word, as his first, was Liberty ! 
His last word, as his first, for Truth 
Struck to the heart of age and youth : 

He sought her everywhere. 
In the loud city, forest, sea and air : 
He bowed to wisdom other than his own, 

To wisdom and to law. 

Concealed, or dimly shown 
In all he knew not, all he knew and saw, 
Trusting the Present, tolerant of the Past, 

Firm-faithed in what shall come 
When the vain noises of these days are dumb ; 
And his first word was noble as his last. 



ORATION 



JOHN BIGELOW. 



^"1 THEN Dante was invited by the Council of his 
^ ^ native city to undertake a conciliatory embassy 
to the pontifical court at Rome, he is said to have re- 
plied after some hesitation, but with that frankness 
which is one of the prerogatives of genius : 

If I go, who remains ? 

If I remain, who goes ? 

Before many who hear me were born, our lamented 
colleague, in memory of whom we are assembled this 
evening, occupied an eminence which placed his 
country in a not dissimilar dilemma. 

And now that he is gone we may ask with no 
feigned humility, Who remains ? Who shall now 
strike that lyre to which for more than three genera- 
tions Nature has been confiding the secrets of her 
heavenly parentage. 



22 

Who shall henceforth be our daily evening coun- 
sellor and occupy among us that seat of authority 
which, like Job, " he prepared in the street ; in awe of 
whom the young men hid themselves, the aged arose 
and stood up, the princes refrained from talking and 
laid their hands upon their mouths ? " 

Who remains to lend his dignity of character and 
eraces of discourse to those ereat occasions when 
a national expression was to be given to national 
emotions ? 

Who shall fill his place in this bereaved circle of 
which from its birth he was the charm, the ornament 
and the pride ? 

That he cannot be here to-nieht to weave the 
wreath of Cyprus for that tomb to which we have so 
recently consigned his mortal remains, brings home to 
the Century a new sense of the irreparable loss it has 
sustained ; of the extent to which it is impoverished. 

In consenting to be one of the interpreters of the 
emotions of this assembly in which Bryant was so 
intimately and thoroughly known, I feel that I shall 
meet all your just expectations, if I submit to you some 
of the more durable impressions which our late revered 
associate left upon my mind during an acquaintance of 
nearly forty years ; leaving to a more impartial speak- 
er, and perhaps to a more impartial tribunal, the re- 



23 

sponsible task of defining the rank he is ultimately to 
take among those who have been conspicuous in 
moulding the opinions and shaping the destinies of 
men. 

Bryant was six years older than the century ; of 
noble birth, for both his parents were descended from 
passengers in the Mayflower, He began to distil the 
lessons of life into popular verse while yet a child, and 
while most boys are wrestling with the elementary 
laws of grammar and numeration. 

At eighteen he had produced a poem of which no 
poet of any age would have disdained to be the au- 
thor. He was then recently admitted to the bar of 
his native state, to which callino^ his fellow citizens 
added the responsibilities of a Justice of the Peace. 
But he had already " conversed with promises." The 
fame which the publication of " Thanatopsis " in 
1816, and the '' Ages " in 1821, had secured him, had 
opened to his vision a wider horizon. 

An impression has prevailed that Bryant quit 
the profession of the law doubting his fitness to 
succeed in it ; that he was too shy, too fond ot 
seclusion and too indisposed to the aggressive and 
contentious sort of life throuorh which the hiMier re- 
wards of that profession are commonly attained. I 
shall take the liberty of saying that I do not share this 



24 

opinion. I do not think that he quit the bar from any 
mistrust of his abihty to succeed as a lawyer, but be- 
cause he foresaw a speedier and a greater success 
within his reach. At the early age at which he for- 
sook the profession, he could not in the nature of 
things have acquired any considerable reputation in it, 
while as a poet he was already famous. In the law he 
was still planting, while as a writer, the harvest was 
ripe and ready for his sickle. 

I do not know of any one qualification for success 
in many of the various departments of the legal pro- 
fession, with which Mr. Bryant was not eminently 
equipped. Because his genius lifted him while yet a 
boy to a sphere where he had to deal with the strug- 
gles of mankind, it by no means follows that he could 
have dealt less successfully with the contests of indi- 
vidual men : He had a prodigious power of acquiring 
knowledge, which made him one of the most accom- 
plished men of his age ; a mind singularly clear and 
difficult to sophisticate ; habits of industry which would 
appall most men who think themselves industrious, and 
a devotion to duty and a fidelity to engagements 
which would have inspired the unlimited confidence of 
courts, juries and clients. All these qualities are too 
rarely united in any person to leave a doubt that they 
would have o-iven Bryant a relative eminence at the 



25 

bar as Incontestlble as that which he was destined to 
obtain in hterature. 

It was natural that the writer of the two best poems 
which, up to that time, had been prochiced in our 
country, should attract the notice of the pubHshers, 
whose glasses are always ranging the horizon in quest 
of new stars of which they may appropriate the radi- 
ance. The result was an invitation, of which without 
much hesitation Bryant availed himself, to come to 
New York and become one of the editors of the 'Neiv 
Yoi'k Review and Athenceum Magazine. In this early 
putting off the grub and putting on the butterfly, the 
bar lost one whom I will persist in thinking might 
have become one of its greatest ornaments, but lost it 
only as the meadow parts with its grasses that they 
may become the constituents of a higher organized 
life. 

Mr. Bryant took np his residence in New York 
and the profession to which he was to give dignity 
and distinction, in the winter of 1824-5, and in the 
thirtieth year of his age. In making this change he 
showed an accuracy in measuring his forces for which 
he was noted through life. He at once set in the 
clouds that bow of promise at the feet of which for- 
tune and fame are buried. The very first number of 
his new magazine contained two poems which even 



now would establish the character of any periodical 
enterprise, the " Marco Bozarus" of Halleck and his 
own " Sone of Pitcairns Island." The latter verses, 
which a journalist of the time fitly styled " one of the 
sweetest pictures that a highly cultivated fancy ever 
drew," I have reason to believe was always as great 
a favorite with its author as with its readers. 

But Mr. Bryant was always too faithful to his pil- 
grim lineage, too earnest in his convictions, too deeply 
interested in the great social and political problems of 
his time, '' to dream away his years in the arms of the 
muses, like Enclymion in the embrace of the moon." 
Another change awaited him. In the following year, 
1826, he was invited to share in the editorship of the 
Evening 'Post of this city, a daily paper, like himself 
a few years older than the current century, founded 
under the political auspices of Alexander Hamilton, 
and always exerting an important influence in the 
country. The only conditions which Mr. Bryant 
attached to his acceptance of the position, I have 
heard him say, was the privilege of advocating a re- 
moval of needless restrictions upon commerce and a 
separation of government moneys from the banking 
capital of the country. These conditions proved no 
obstacle to an arrangement, neither of the parties 
dreaming at the time, I presume, that he was taking 



27 

a step which was to associate their journal, for the 
next quarter of a century, with the fortunes of a 
poHtical party which it had been founded to oppose, 
and if possible destroy. 

From this time forth, and until the close of his lone 
life, a period of fifty-two years, and covering- the ad- 
ministrations of nine Presidents, Mr. Bryant continued 
in the editorship of the Evening Post. He never en- 
gaged in any other business enterprise ; he never ern- 
barked in any financial speculations ; he was never an 
officer of any other financial or industrial corporation, 
nor did he ever accept any political office or trust. He 
had found an employment at last that w^as entirely con- 
genial to him, and one, as Dr. Bellows has wisely said, 
which " most fully economised his temperament and 
faculties for the public service ; " and he was as loyal 
to his profession as it was to him. I think it quite 
safe to say that for ^v^ days out of every week 
during at least forty-two of his fifty- two years of edi- 
torial service, Mr. Bryant was at his editorial desk 
before eight o'clock in the morning, and left the daily 
impress of his character and genius in some form upon 
the columns of his journal. When the length of his 
career as editor is considered, it may be assumed that 
Mr. Bryant was one of the most voluminous prose 
writers that ever lived, and to this audience I need 



hardly add, one of the best. It would be difficult to 
name a single topic of national importance, or which 
has occupied any considerable share of public attention 
during the last half centur\', upon which Bryant did 
not find occasion to form and publish an opinion, an 
opinion too. which alwa3's commanded the respect, if 
not the adhesion of his readers. 

Though journalism is a comparatively modern pro- 
fession, it is already divided into schools, two of which 
are well defined. One aims to daguerreot}'pe the 
events and humors of the day, whatever they may be ; 
the other, to direct and shape those events and humors 
to special standards. One is merely a reflector of what 
passes across its field ; the other, a lens converging 
the news of the day like the rays of light in specific 
directions. One is the school of the real and the other 
of the ideal. A journal of the former class, of which 
the London Times and the Xeiv Yoi'k Herald are per- 
haps the most distinguished specimens to-day. is essen- 
tially an ephemeron. Each day's publication is com- 
plete, having no necessan* dependence upon any pub- 
lication preceding or to follow it. It is simply the 
living body of that portion of time which has elapsed 
since its previous issue. It masquerades with its 
readers in the idolatry or passion of to-day, and to- 
morrow perhaps with them it clothes itself in the sack- 



^9 

cloth and ashes of repentance. The other school aims 
to control and direct society ; to teach and to lead it : 
to tell not so much what it has been doine as what it 
ought to do or to have done. As such it must be 
consistent with itself and teach its doctrines in their 
purity, irrespective of the fluctuations of public opinion. 

It was to the latter school of journalism that Mr. 
Bryant belonged. The amelioration of society was 
the warp with which he was always striving to inter- 
weave the woof of current events. 

I will not undertake to say which of these two 
schools of ioumalism is the more useful. Both are 
useful : neither can be spared : but they invite very 
different orders of mind and a verv different ranee of 
accomplishments. I doubt if the school to which Mr. 
Bryant belonged, and of which Coleridge and Southey 
were consoicuous ornaments in their earlier years, 
ever had his superior : if it ever had a pen in its 
senice which wrote so admirabh'. as much that was 
sound and profitable, with so little that was neither 
sound nor profitable. 

It is possible that his power as a journalist might 
have been increased bv a laro-er intercourse with the 

- o 

world. During the more active stages of his profes- 
sional career he saw comparatively few people save 
those who souo^ht him at his office, and these consisted 



largely, of course, of those who had personal ends to 
serve by the visit. This isolation made it so much 
easier for designing men to disguise the antipathies, 
prejudices and selfishness which often prompted their 
sueeestions. A larger commerce with the world 
would have rectified erroneous impressions sometimes 
left upon his mind by this class of parasites, who usu- 
ally approached him on the moral side of his nature, 
because it was the most impressionable. 

Though accustomed daily for more than half a cen- 
tury to discuss professionally the doings of our Federal 
and State Governments, he was never at Washington 
or at Albany, I believe, but once, except as a traveller 
passing through those capitals to some remoter point. 
I once urged him to visit Washington during an im- 
portant crisis in our struggle for free labor and free 
speech. He declined, assigning as a reason that 
he had been there once ; — I think it was during the 
administration of President Van Buren — and found 
that he was more content with the judgment he formed 
in his office, of the doings at the seat of Government 
than with any he was able to form under the shadow 
of the Capitol. He shrunk too from the restraints 
which personal intercourse with the public servants 
imposed upon the freedom of his pen. According to 
his view, a journalist did less than his duty who did 



not strive at least to leave the world better than he 
found it ; who did not wrestle with those social and 
political abuses which are amenable to public opinion. 
The reform of society, like Mahomed's paradise, lies 
in the shadow of crossed swords. Controversy there- 
fore, always earnest and sometimes acrimonious with 
those whom he regarded as the Amorites, the Hivites 
and the Perrizites of the land was inevitable. He 
shrank to the verge of rudeness from all social, profes- 
sional or political entanglements which in any way 
threatened his freedom of speech or the equilibrium of 
his judgment. He had no personal antagonisms, but 
he could not compromise or transact with those whom 
he regarded as the enemies of society. 

This jealousy of his independence accounted in part 
for the fact that he never held any political office. 
The conditions which usually attach to political honors 
in our country are hardly consistent with the judicial 
attitude which a journalist of the Bryant school pro- 
fesses to occupy, and sooner or later must interfere 
with, his freedom of discussion on the one hand, or 
with that loyalty to his party which is a more or less 
important element of his power on the other. No one 
knew better than Mr. Bryant that the beneficiary or 
dependent of a party is not in a position to criticise or 
defend it with authority. 



32 

In 1874, while a guest of Governor Tilden a few 
clays at Albany, he was tendered a complimentary re- 
ception from both branches of the legislature. On his 
return I asked him if that was not the first official at- 
tention he had ever received from any federal, state, 
or municipal body. He said it was. We had then 
both forgotten what I believe to be the single excep- 
tion. While absent on the second of his three visits 
to the Old World, he was elected a Regent of the 
University of the State of New York. The mail fol- 
lowino; that which bore the intellicrence, brouo^ht me 
the following letter : 

Paris, July 9th, 1858. 
To John Bigelow, Esq.: 

My Dear Sir — I learn, through the newspapers, that I have been eleeted by 
the New York Legislature a Regent of the University. I will not affect to un- 
dervalue the favorable opinion of so respectable a public body, manifested in 
so spontaneous a manner, without the least solicitation on the part of my 
friends, and I beg that this letter may be used as an expression of my best 
thanks. 

There are, however, many motives which make it necessary for me to decline 
the appointment, and among these are my absence from the country, the incon- 
venience of combining the duties of the place with the pursuits in which I am 
engaged when at home, and my aversion to any form of public life now, by my 
long habit made, I fear invincible. I therefore desire by this letter to return 
the appointment to the kind hands which have sought to confer it upon me, 
conlident that some worthier person will easily be found, who will bring the 
necessary alacrity to the performance of its duties. 

I am, dear sir, very truly yours, 

W. C. BRYANT. 



33 

This letter recalls the reply which Mr. Faraday, one 
of the master spirits of the Victorian Age, gave to his 
friend Tyndall, who had urged him to accept the Pres- 
idency of the Royal Society : *' Tyndall," said he, " I 
must remain plain Michael Faraday to the last ; and 
let me now tell you that if I accepted the honor which 
the Royal Society desires to confer upon me, I would 
not answer for the integrity of my intellect a single 
year." 

Whether Mr. Bryant ever mistrusted the integrity 
of his intellect, no one probably but the Master knows, 
but that the struggle to maintain its integrity as a 
journalist while wearing the chains and livery of office, 
would be much more severe and that, as a dependent 
of government his word would be deprived of much of 
its power, and that these were considerations which 
had great w^eight in determining him to give to his 
journal an undivided allegiance, no one who knew him 
well, can for one moment doubt. 

But his lack of official distinction had its compen- 
sations. No one of equal eminence probably ever 
suffered less than Bryant from the envy and jealousy 
of others, and mainly because he never sought nor 
accepted honors which others coveted. 

Petrarch lived to bewail the zeal with which, in the 
youth of his fame, he sought the laurel crown at 



34 

RomCo " Had I been more advanced in years," he 
said, " I should have refused it. This crown has 
neither made me more learned, nor more eloquent, 
it has deprived me of repose and filled me with dis- 
trust." To all such repinings, I take no risk in saying, 
that Bryant w^as utterly a stranger. 

But there were other considerations which no doubt 
had their weight in keeping his name out of the list 
of competitors for official honors. No man's greatness 
ever appears more lustrous than when declining dis- 
tinctions which are the common objects of ambition. 
Long before he had achieved any rank as a political 
journalist, he had attained a reputation as a man of 
letters to which public station could add very little, if 
anything. There is a wise old proverb, that any man 
can afford to go on foot who leads his horse. Earl 
Russell could afford to decline a resting place in 
Westminister Abbey, with the ancestral vault of the 
Bedfords awaiting him at the Chenies. It required no 
great effort of self denial for Beranger to decline a seat 
in the Academy, and w4iat he termed the bi^imborions 
of the Legion of Honor, to remain the poet of the 
French Revolution, under the magic of whose melo- 
dious incantations thrones were tottering and dynasties 
were returning to the dust from which they sprang. 
Long before Bryant had achieved any rank as a 



i 



political journalist, he was justified in the belief that 
his reputation was already of a finer texture than any 
of our political looms could weave. 

At the funeral of one of the Caesars, who was 
a sister of Brutus and widow of Cassius, Tacitus 
tells us that as a mark of special distinction, Tiberius 
directed the statues of twenty of the most illustrious 
families of Rome to be borne in the procession. But, 
says the inexorable historian, Brutus and Cassius out- 
shone them all by reason of their statues not being 
among them. Scd pracfitlgebant Cassius atqiic Briitiis 
eo ipso qitod effigies eoritvi non visebanturr 

Whether Tiberius could as well afford their ab- 
sence, and whether our country could as well afTord 
to deprive itself of the weight of Mr. Bryant's great 
name and character in its administrative councils, are 
questions v/hich this is not a suitable occasion to 
discuss. 

With Mr. Bryant's accomplishments as an artist, 
and his wide range of faculties for literary work, there 
is still one key without which it is impossible to reach 
the secret of his influence, whether as a poet, a journ- 
alist, a citizen or a companion. I refer to his wonder- 
fully complete moral organization. He was one of the 
most truthful men I ever knew. Not only was his 

* Annales Lib. 3, LXXVI. 



36 

speech truthful, but his silence was truthful. What he 
did, and what he did not do ; what he said and 
what he did not say, alike bore testimony to the 
uprightness of his character. Like Milton, he was 
very sparing of praise, hence the great value which 
his praise always possessed. His memorial discourses 
on Irving, and Cooper, and Halleck, and Verplanck, 
are models in all respects, but especially in their truth- 
ful discrimination of the qualities for which those 
founders of our literature were respectively distin- 
guished. He did not arraign their poverty by ascrib- 
ing to either merits he did not possess. 

Plutarch tells us of a Roman judge refusing to act 
upon the testimony of a single witness in a case where 
the law required the testimony of two witnesses. 
" No," said the judge, " not even if Cato himself were 
the witness." This country has probably produced no 
person to whose truthfulness a similar homage from 
the bench would seem less inappropriate than to 
Bryant. A statement from him required no sanction. 
His profound conscientiousness too, invested his char- 
acter with an atmosphere in which no unworthy or 
degrading purpose could breathe* or exist for a mo- 
ment. And here lay the secret of a personal dignity 
which with him was more than majestic. Though 
with his friends one of the most genial and to all the 



37 

world the most unpretending of men, one would as 
soon think of taking a liberty with the Pope as with 
Bryant. 

The impression he left upon strangers when first 
presented to him was apt to be chilling. Though 
never unkind, his manner in such cases was not re- 
sponsive. His greetings were discouraging, especially 
to the numbers whose admiration for him had been 
feeding for years upon an ideal shaped from his works, 
and who regarded an introduction to him as an epoch 
in their lives. This apparent want of cordiality did 
not result from insensibility, nor wholly from his con- 
stitutional aversion to be lionized, but rather from an 
unwillingness to express in any way a greater degree 
of interest than he felt. As soon as acquaintance 
ripened a feeling of greater cordiality, his manner 
betrayed it, but always within the limits of the strictest 
truthfulness. He spoke and lived 

" As ever in his great task Master's eye," 

and expecting to account for every word he uttered. 

Whoever will adopt the same lofty rule in his inter- 
course with the world, will soon find the true explana- 
tion of much that in Bryant was attributed to a cold 
and unsympathetic treatment. He took little note of 
any but moral distinctions among men. Mere worldly 
rank impressed him less than almost any man I ever 



38 

knew. I was once his guest at Roslyn with a for- 
eigner of some distinction, who at the close of the first 
repast after our arrival, presumed upon the privilege 
accorded to persons of his rank at home to rise first 
and dismiss the table. Mr. Bryant joined me on our 
way to the parlor, and with an expression of undis- 
guised astonishment asked me, " Did you see that ? " 
I replied that I did, and with a view of extenuating 
the gentleman's offense as much as I could, said that 
he evidently thought he only was exercising one of 
the recognized prerogatives of his order. " Well," he 
said, " he will have no opportunity of repeating it 
here ; " and he was as good as his word, for during 
the remainder of our sojourn, no one was left in doubt 
whose prerogative it was in that house to dismiss the 
table. Some weeks later he alluded to this incident 
and quoted from a conversation he had once held with 
Fenimore Cooper, his strictures upon this exasperat- 
ing assumption of the titled classes in some communi- 
ties of the old world. He was willing that others 
should adopt any standard that pleased them best, by 
which to rate their fellows, himselt included, but he 
would not accept directly or indirectly for himself any 
other standard than that which, so far as he knew, his 
Maker would apply. 

As Bryant, from the day he embarked in journal- 



39 

ism, continued a journalist until the close of his life, 
from a yet earlier period of his life to its close he 
never ceased to be a poet ; reminding us of Cowley's 
remark that it is seldom seen that the poet dies before 
the man. But Bryant never confounded the two vo- 
cations in any way, or allowed either to interfere to 
any appreciable extent w^ith the other. They consti- 
tuted two separate and distinct currents of intellectual 
life, one running through the other if you please, but 
never mixing with it, as the gulf-stream winds its way 
through the broad Atlantic, though always distin- 
guished from it by its higher temperature. None of 
the more vulgar considerations of authorship ever 
operated upon his muse so far as I was ever able to 
discern. He never sang for money ; neither did he 
use his poetical gifts for worldly or professional ends. 
He used his feet for walking and he used his wings 
for flying, but he never attempted to fly with his feet 
nor to run w^ith his wings. He earned his bread, and 
he fought the battle of life with his journal, but he 
made no secret of the fact that he looked to his verses 
for the perpetuation of his name ; when he put on his 
singing robes he practically withdrew from the world 
and went up into a high mountain, where the din and 
clamor of professional life in which he habitually dwelt, 
was inaudible. On those occasions 

" His soul was like a star and dwelt apart." 



40 

When the semi-centennial anniversary of the Even- 
ing Post was approaching, I proposed to him to pre- 
pare for its columns a sketch of its career. He cheer- 
fully accepted the task, and in order that he might be 
free from interruption, I recommended him to go down 
to his country-home at Roslyn and remain there until 
it was finished, and let me send him there such of the 
files of the paper as he might have occasion to consult. 
He rejected the proposal as abruptly as if I had 
asked him to offer sacrifices to Apollo. He would al- 
low no such work to follow him there. Xot even the 
shadow of his business must fall upon the consecrated 
haunts of his muse. He rarelv broucfht or sent anv- 
thing from the country for the Evenhig Post ; but if 
he did, it was easy to detect in the character of the 
fish that they had been caught in strange waters. 
This separation of his professional from his poetical 
life must be taken into account in any effort to explain 
the uniform esteem in which he was always held as a 
poet by his country people, while, not unfrequendy, 
one of the least popular of journalists. I have heard 
his verses quoted in public meetings during the earlier 
stages of the anti-slavery controversy, where if he had 
appeared in person he could have scarcely escaped 
outrage. No poet of eminence probably had less of 
the benefit of adverse criticism, while as a journalist 



41 

he was almost always embattled. I can recall but a 
single instance in which his verses became the subject 
of a controversy, and in that, he was, strictly speaking, 
neither the provoker of the controversy nor a party to 
it. Because of its exceptional character, I need offer 
no apology for quoting from his memorial discourse 
on \\^ashington Irving, the language with which he 
himself saw fit to rescue the incident from oblivion. 

" I should have mentioned, and I hope I may do so without mucli egotism, 
that when a volume of my poems was published here in 1832, Mr, Verplanck 
had the kindness to send a copy of it to Irving, desiring him to find a publisher 
for it in England. This he readily engaged to do, though wholly unacquainted 
with me, and offered the volume to Murray. ' Poetry does not sell at present,' 
said Murray, and declined it. A bookseller in Bond Street, named Andrews, 
undertook its publication, but required that Irving should introduce it with a 
preface of his own. He did so, speaking of my verses in such terms as would 
naturally command the attention of the public, and allowing his name to be 
placed on the title-page as the editor. The edition in consequence found a 
sale. It happened however that the publisher objected to two lines in a poem 
entitled the ' Song of Marion's Men.' One of them was 

' The British soldier trembles.' 
and Irving good naturedly consented that it should be altered to 

' The foeman trembles in his camp.' 
The other alteration was of a similar character. 

To the accusations of the Plaindealer Irving replied with a mingled spirit 
and dignity, which almost makes us regret that his faculties were not oftener 
roused into energy by such collisions, or at least that he did not sometimes 
employ his pen on controverted points. He fully vindicated himself in both 
instances, showing that he had made the alterations in my poem, from a simple 
desire to do me service. * * * In his answer to the Plaindealer, some 
allusions were made to me which seemed to imply that I had taken part in this 
attack. To remove this impression, I sent a note to the Plaindealer for pub- 
lication, in which I declared in substance that I never had complained of the 
alterations of my poems — that though they were not such as I should have 
made, I was certain they were made with the kindest intentions, and that I had 
no feeling toward Mr. Irving but gratitude for the service he had rendered me. 
The explanation was graciously accepted, and in a brief note in the Plaindealer 
Irving pronounced my acquittal." 



42 

To judge of a poet, said Ben Johnson, is not the 
faculty of all poets, but only of the best. I gladly 
avail myself of so high an authority for sa}"ing nothing 
of Bryant's rank and quality as a poet save what may 
with propriety be said by one who cannot pretend to 
be even a poor poet. 

Brvaxt sprang into the world as a poet full grown. 
His muse had no adolescence. As with Pindar, the 
bees swarmed in his m.outh while yet a child. At 
eighteen he took his place as the first poet of the 
country, but not to realize the too common fate of 
such rare precocity, and fall a prey to the envy ol the 
gods, as Dry den puts it, who 

" ^^^len their gifts too lavishly are placed 
Soon they repent and will not make them last." 

There is no evidence that Bryant's genius ever suf- 
fered from prematurity of development. He never 
wrote a poem from the day that " Thanatopsis" ap- 
peared until his death that was unworthy of his best, 
and the cadences yet linger in the air of those impres- 
sive lines with which he commemorated the last birth- 
day of the hero of our Republic. Was there ever a 
more meritorious poem written by a youth of eighteen 
than " Thanatopsis ? " Was there ever a nobler, a 
more Homeric thought more exquisitely set to verse 
by an octogenarian than is developed in the three last 
stanzas, which I offer no apolog}- for reciting from his 



43 

last printed poem, entitled, '* The 2 2d of February," 
the birthdav of AVashineton ? 

Lo where beneath an icy shield 

Calmly the mighty Hudson flows ! 
By snow clad fell and frozen field 

Broadening the mighty river goes. 

The wildest storm that sweeps through space, 

And rends the oak with sudden force, 
Can raise no ripple on his face, 

Or slacken his majestic course. 

Thus 'mid the wreck of thrones shall live 

Unmarred, undimmed our hero's fame, 
And years succeeding years shall give 

Increase of honors to his name. 

Xo one will deny that in one respect, at least, 
Bryant's fame was entirely unique. He was the 
author of the finest verses ever produced by any one 
so young and so old as the author of " Thanatopsis" 
and of" The 22d of February." 

Because he treated his poetic vocation not as a 
business but as an apostolate. Bryant, though an 
accepted writer of verse for nearly three quarters of 
a century, was one of the least voluminous of the 
eminent poets. He published only about 166 original 
poems averaging 60 lines each. This would giYe 
about two poems, or only i5i lines a year, which 
seems very little for one so complete a master ot 
all the arts of versification, to whom the reduction 



44 

of his thoughts to poetic measure was only a pastime. 

Like Horace, Hke Burns, hke Beranger, but unhke 
most other poets of celebrity, Bryant wrote no long 
poems. I once asked him why. He replied, '' There 
is no such thing as a long poem." His theory was 
that a long poem was as impossible as a long ecstasy ; 
that what is called a long poem, like " Paradise Lost" 
and the " Divine Comedy," is a mere succession of 
poems strung together upon a thread of verse ; the 
thread of verse serving sometimes to popularize them 
by adapting them to a wider range of literary taste, 
or a more sluggish intellectual digestion. 

As a consequence of the severe conscientiousness 
which ruled his tongue and consecrated his pen, Bry- 
ant never wrote a poem which was not winged with 
a high moral purpose. He never degraded his gift 
of song to the glorification of any of the lusts of the 
flesh, the pride of the eye or the pride of life ; he 
never wrote an erotic or bacchanalian song- ; he never 
burned incense upon the altars of transient popular 
idols. He never exchanged praise for money or 
honors, " nor opened a shop for condolence or con- 
gratulation." There is perhaps no feature of Bryant's 
poetry that more faithfully reflects the completeness 
and admirable proportions of the man than their free- 
dom from what is transient and perishable ; from what 



45 

is born of the passion, the prejudice, or the weakness 
of the hour ; from everything wearing- the Hver)' of 
the period. Following his own advice to the poet, 
slightly pharaphrased, 

He let no empty gust 

Of passion find an utterance in his lay, 
A blast that whirls the dust 

Along the crowded street and dies away ; 
But feelings of calm power and mighty sweep, 
Like currents journeying through the windless deep. 

As water in crystalizincr excludes all foreio-n ineredi- 
ents, and out of acids, alkalies and other solutions 
yields a crystal of perfect purity and sweetness, so 
his thoughts in passing into verse seemed to separate 
themselves from everything that was transient or 
vulgar. His poems have come to us as completely 
freed from every trace of what is of the earth earthy 
as if, like St. Luke's pictures, they had received their 
finishing touch from the ano^els. 

Bryant's muse lacked those qualities which insure a 
prompt and general popularity. It was owing less I 
think to a lack in himself of the qualities necessary to 
secure immediate acceptance, than to the presence of 
qualities which consecrated his muse to more exalted 
uses. He had an exquisite humor, but it was the ser- 
vant of his thought and not its master ; no one could 
tell a story better, but his stories were only the acces- 
sories to opinions of greater moment, the blossoms in- 



46 

ciclent to fruiting. Who shall say that with his won- 
derful mastery of the poetic art, had he been disposed, 
he might not have been the popular satirist of the day, 
or the sentimental favorite of the salon ; that he might 
not have excelled as a writer of amorous and bacchana- 
lian verse, and like too many of our English classics, 
have made himself the idol of the drinking saloon and 
the brothel. The fact that he never prostituted his 
muse to any such base uses, only proves that his 
aims were higher ; that he wished to be the interpre- 
ter of universal truth, not of transitory opinions ; to 
elevate and purify, rather than to amuse ; to quicken 
our nobler sensibilities, rather than be simply the in- 
terpreter of our baser natures ; and in short he at- 
tached more value to the solemn verdict of posterity 
than to the freakish applause of contemporaries. 
Enough praise has never been given to what poets of 
genius have sometimes forborne to write. Dr. John- 
son in one of his most thoui^htful communications to 
the Idler, assigns some reasons for the comparatively 
short-lived popularity of Hudibras, the wittiest satire 
that was ever penned, which will explain what I ven- 
ture to predict will be the more enduring fame of the 
poems of Bryant : 

"He that writes upon general principles or delivers universal truths, may- 
hope to be often read, because his work will be equally useful at all times and 
in every country ; but he cannot hope to be received with eagerness or to spread 



47 

with rapidity ; tliat which is to l^e loved long must be loved with reason rather 
than with passion. He that lays out his labors upon temporary subjects, easily 
linds readers and quickly loses them ; for what should make the book valued 
when the subject is no more ? 

" These [observations will show the reason why the poem of Hudibras is 
almost forgotten, however embellished with sentiments and diversified with 
allusions ; however bright with wit and however solid with truth. The hypoc- 
risy which is detected and the folly which is ridiculed, have long vanished from 
public notice. Those who had felt the mischief of discord and the tyranny of 
usurpation, read it with rapture, for every line brought back to memory some- 
thing known and gratified resentment by the just censure of something hated. 
But the book that was once quoted by princes, and which supplied conversation 
to all the assemblies of the gay and witty, is now seldom mentioned, and even 
by those who affect to mention it, it is seldom read ; so vainly is wit lavished upon 
fugitive topics ; so little can architecture secure duration when the ground is 
false."* 

There are few if any poems in the collected edition 
of Bryant's works which ought not to be as true, as 
readable and as edifying a thousand years hence as 
the day they were printed, and, what can be said of 
few poets with equal truth, as the world grows better, 
there is every reason to presume that his poetry will 
be more highly and widely esteemed. 

, Bryant was a philosopher as well as a poet, and 
finds his most appreciative readers among those whose 
life has passed beyond the sensuous to the reflective 
stage. The number who comprehend the full force of 
his poems at a single reading is comparatively small. 
Every one of his verses will bear the supreme test of 
a work of literary art, which discloses a wider horizon 
and new merits at each successive perusal. 

* Idler No. 50. 



48 

There seemed to be no waste about Mr. Bryant's 
life, and in that respect he was a phenomenon. He 
never put off till the morrow the duty of to-day. He 
was the most punctilious of men about engagements, 
no matter how trifling their character or humble the 
person or purpose to be served. He seemed to have 
every moment of his time wisely appropriated, and 
every faculty of his being always employed to the 
maximum of its capacity. His pleasures and recrea- 
tions, of which he secured a reasonable share, were 
always made more or less tributary to the symmetry 
of his genius and character. So wisely were his 
habits of life regulated, and so perfect his self-disci- 
pline, that he was always in the mood for his work. 
He is the only man I ever knew who seemed to have 
as much capacity for literary labor one day as another ; 
every day as any day. 

I once asked him how it happened that in a pro- 
fession generally so fatal to the higher qualities of 
style because of the haste in which much of its work 
has to be done, he had managed for more than half 
a century to preserve his style in such purity and 
perfection. " If my style has fewer defects than you 
expect," he said, '* it is for the reason, I suppose, 
which Dr. Johnson gave Bos well for conversing so 
well: I always write my best." '' But," I said, " there 



49 

are daily emergencies when there is no time to choose 
words and be dainty, when the alternative is a hasty 
article or none at all." '' I would sooner the paper 
would go to press without an editorial article than 
send to the printer one I was not satisfied with," was 
his reply. 

Pope excused himself to one of his correspon- 
dents for neglect of style and method in his 
familiar letters, on the ground that he was writing to 
a friend. I will venture to say that Bryant never 
offered or needed any such excuse for himself, and 
that he never wrote a note to his grocer or butcher, 
that in so far as its form and expression were con- 
cerned, was not as faultless as if it had been written 
for the press. 

Of all the great writers of English, I know of 
none in whose works will be found so few 
words used improperly, or so few improper words. 
Bryant's marvellous mastery of his native tongue has 
been often celebrated, and yet though persuasive and 
convincing, I don't remember that he was ever elo- 
quent. Even in conversation he was never fervid. 

Dr. Johnson makes it a reproach to Pope that he 
wrote his translation of the Iliad upon the backs of 
old letters. Mr. Bryant rarely wrote for the Evening 
Post upon anything else, not as Johnson intimated in 



50 

the case of Pope, from a penny wise and pound foolish 
parsimony, but from a principle which was one of the 
logical consequences of his theory of human responsi- 
bility. His table was filled with old letters on their 
way to the paper mill. They were as serviceable for 
his editorial work as if they were fresh from it. He 
used them because he believed that everybody in the 
world was made the poorer by everything that is 
wasted, and no one so much as he wdio wastes, for he 
experiences a w^aste of character as w-ell as of property. 
I have said that Brvaxt was a philosopher, but he 
was not in the least metaphysical. He came into pos- 
session of the most profound and important truths, by 
sheltering his judgment from worldly and selfish in- 
fluences, and by extirpating all evil and unworthy 
proclivities. By making his soul a fitting dwelling- 
place, wisdom sought its hospitality. But he trusted 
himself rarely to the open sea of speculation. His 
mind w^as perfectly inaccessible to crotchets. When 
he went to w^ar he always equipped himself with 
proved weapons. Yet he was always open to new 
ideas, and the farthest in the world from believing that 
man had reached the limits of knowledge in any di- 
rection. No man ever had a profounder sense ot re- 
sponsibility for what he taught ; and w^hile he listened 
patiently when necessary to the dreams and specula- 



51 

tlons of enthusiasts, he never asked any such indul- 
gence from his readers. He never professed to be 
wiser than everybody else, nor to see farther. He 
never shocked the most simple-minded of his readers 
by startling novelties in thought or expression. He 
never plucked truths before they were ripe. He never 
confounded the chemist's laboratory with the kitchen, 
nor served his readers' table with the products of the 
crucible, or the retort. 

It could be said of Bryant, if of any man, that he 
had no vices. Neither had he any time- wasting 
habits. He never consciously indulged any appetite 
or taste to the prejudice of his health or of any duty. 
Without beincv in the least an ascetic, or foreo^oine 
any of the legitimate pleasures of the table, he had 
occasion to lose no time in repairing forces exhausted 
by any species of excess. I could not conceive of his 
indulging in anything which he even suspected might 
impair his mental, moral or physical efficiency, merely 
because it eave a transient stratification. He never 
seemed to exercise self-denial, so completely had it 
become the law of his life to do what appeared to him 
best to be done. This was the secret of his almost 
miraculous health, which preserved him in the full 
enjoyment of all his faculties up to his last illness, and 
which enabled him, after he was seventy years of age, 



52 

to associate his name imperishably with the greatest 
of epic poets, by the least imperfect Enghsh transla- 
tion of the Iliad and Odyssey that has yet been made. 
I am warranted in savino-, that until the distressinof 
accident which terminated his days, he was never dis- 
abled by sickness within the memory of any person 
now livins:. 

" In years he seemed but not impaired by years." 

His health responded so faithfully to the inexorable 
loyalty of his character, as to go far towards justifying 
Buffon's theory, that the normal life of man is an hun- 
dred years, and that it is due, not to the use but the 
abuse of his ortranization, if he finds an earlier crrave. 

Meetinor him some years a'^o and after a somewhat 
prolonged separation, I asked him particularly about 
his health. He said it was so perfect he hardly dared 
to speak of it. He was not conscious from one week 
to another, he said, of a physical sensation that he 
Avould have different ; and was forgetting that he was 
liable to disease and decay. I asked him for his 
secret. He replied that he did not know that there 
was any secret about it, but he supposed he owed 
much of his health to a habit formed in early life, of 
devoting the first hour and a half or two hours after 
leavincr his bed in the mornincr. to moderate orymnastic 
exercise, after which he took a bath and a lieht break- 



JJ 



fast, consisting; usually of milk with some kind of cereal 
food and fruit, but no meat. At dinner he ate pretty 
much what other people ate. His evening meal, when 
he did not dine late, was much the same as his break- 
fast. He drank sparingly of anything stronger than 
water. He avoided all condiments, he used neither 
tea nor coffee, and held tobacco in abhorrence. I re- 
member the time when he could not stay in a room 
infected with the fumes of tobacco, though later in life 
he became less sensitive to its effects. He rarely al- 
lowed himself to be out of bed after ten at niorht, or in 
bed after five in the morning. To these habits and 
reo^imen he said he attributed in a o-reat measure his 
exceptionally good health. Not many weeks before 
his death, and when recovering from a slight indispo- 
sition which he had been describing to me (he was 
then approaching his eighty-fourth year), I said, '' I 
presume you have reduced your allowance of morning 
gymnastics." '' Not the width of your thumb nail," 
was his prompt reply. " What," said I, " do you man- 
age still ' to put in ' your hour and a half every morn- 
ing?" "Yes," he replied, "and sometimes more; 
frequently more." This I have always regarded as a 
signal triumph of character. As the glaciers testify to 
the almost incalculable power of the sun which piles 
them upon the peaks of the loftiest mountains, so this 



54 

resolute and conscientious prosecution of a toil which 
directly furthered no personal or worldly end, which 
added nothing- of value to his stock of knowledge, 
which gratified neither his own nor any other person's 
vanity or ambition, which deprived him of a good pro- 
portion of the best working hours of his day, testified 
with unimpeachable authority to the heroic moral 
forces of which his will, his tastes, his ambition, were 
always the patient and cheerful instruments. It was 
the foot of Hercules. When you reflect to what 
precious uses, to what rare delights he could have 
consecrated these morning hours, had he felt at 
liberty to so divert them ; and w^hen you consider 
how few there are who can foreo^o their ci^rar, their 
glass of wine or any other customary indulgence, 
even after they have become aware that its effects 
upon them are pernicious ; how rare it is to find a 
man engaged in intellectual pursuits, who will take the 
exercise which he knows that he requires, though al- 
ready consciously a prey to disease from neglect of it, 
YOU will scarcelv accuse me of exaeeeratino- the im- 
portance of the incident to which I have referred, nor 
deny that it represents a quality of heroism much 
easier to admire than to imitate, and which is only ex- 
hibited by characters of the most symmetrical mould. 
Bryant had a marvellous memory. His familiarity 



55 

with the Enghsh poets was such that when at sea, 
where he was always too ill to read much, he would 
beguile the time by reciting page after page from 
favorite poems. He assured me that, however long 
the voyage, he had never exhausted his resources. I 
once proposed to send for a copy of a magazine in 
which a new poem of his was announced to appear. 
" You need not send for it," said he, '' I can crive it 
to you." " Then you have a copy with you," said I. 
'' No," he replied, '' but I can recall it," and thereupon 
proceeded immediately to write it out. I congratu- 
lated him upon having such a faithful memory. " If 
allowed a little time," he replied, " I could recall ever)' 
line of poetry I have ever written." Yet he rarely 
quoted, and never in a foreign tongue. This is the 
more noticeable as he was scarcely less familiar with 
the lana-ua<^es and literatures of Germany, France and 
Spain ; of ancient and modern Greece and of ancient 
and modern Rome than with that of his own country, 
and he spoke all of those that are now classed among 
the living languages, except the modern Greek, with 
considerable facility and surprising correctness. 

He rated his memory at its true value and never 
abused it. It was a blooded steed which he never 
degraded to the uses of a pack horse. Hence he was 
fastidious about his reading as about his company. 



56 

believing- there was no worse thief than a bad book ; 
but he never tired of writers who have best stood the 
test of time. He liad Httle taste for historical reading. 
Indeed the habits of his mind were not at all in 
sympathy with tlie inductive method of reaching new 
trutlis or propagating them. He often deplored the 
increasing neglect of the old b^nglish classics, which 
our modern facilities for printing were displacing. 
Johnson's lives of the poets was one of his favorite 
books. Pope, who has educated more poets in the 
art of verse making than any other modern author, 
was, from his early youth, his pocket companion. I 
think he had studied him more carefully than any other 
English writer, and was specially impressed by his wit. 
One day as I was looking over the books on the 
shelves of liis library at Roslyn, he called my attention 
to his position. " There," said he, '' I have fallen 
quite accidentally into the precise attitude in which 
Pope is commonly represented, with his forehead 
resting on his fingers." He then got up to look for 
an illustration among his books. He did not find 
what he sought, but he l:)rought two other editions, 
each representing Pope with an abundance of hair 
on his head, one an old folio containing a collection 
of Pope's verses, written before he was twenty-five 
years of age. 



57 

I asked him if he had seen the new edition of 
Pope's works which Ehvin was editing. He said he 
had not, nor heard of it. I then tokl him that Ehvin 
left Pope scarcely a single estimable personal quality, 
and had stripped him of a good share of the literary 
laurels which he had hitherto worn in peace. He 
promptly said that he did not care to see it ; that he 
was not disposed to trust such a judgment, however 
ingeniously defended. He then quoted Young's lines 
on Pope, " Sweet as his own Homer, his life melo- 
dious as his verse." That, said he, is the judgment 
of a contemporary. He then read some lines from 
other poets in farther defence of his favorite. He was 
unwilling to have his idea of Pope disturbed, and when 
I suororested that he should oret Elwin, he said, *' No, I 
want no better edition than Warburton's, the edition 
that was in my father's library, and which I read when 
a boy." Bryant's admiration of Pope is the more 
remarkable, as two characters more unlike could not 
be readily imagined. 

No prose writer since Queen Anne's period received 
from him such frequent commendation as Southey, 
whose prose seemed to have impressed him more 
than his poetry. He shared little of the popular 
enthusiasm for Macauley. I don't remember to have 
heard him ever cite a line or an opinion of Byron, 



58 

who was never one of his favorites. Some twenty- 
five or thirty years ago a person claiming to be a son 
of the poet appeared in New York with some poems 
and letters which he said had been written and given 
him by Byron, and for which he sought to find a 
market among our publishers. I spoke of the matter 
one day to Bryant, and his reply surprised me more 
than it would have done after my opinions of Byron 
were more settled. Looking up with an expression 
which implied more than he uttered, he said, " I think 
we have poems enough of Byron already." 

Horace sought to comfort his friend Maecenas in a 
threatening illness by the assurance that he could 
never survive him. So soon, he said, as you will 
show me the way, let me be permitted to make the 
long journey with you. His prayer was not denied 
him. Within a few days after the . decease of that 
eminent and virtuous statesman, the Roman people 
were called to the funeral of their greatest poet. It is 
a pleasing coincidence in the lives of these illustrious 
bards, in such distant ages born, that Bryant prayed, 
and not in vain, that his last hours also micrht be 
specially conditioned. 

That when he came to lie 

At rest within the ground, 
'T were pleasant that in flowery June, 
When brooks send up a cheerful sound, 
The Sexton's hand, his grave to make. 
The rich green mountain-turf should break. 



59 

Nor did the coincidence end here. A correspond- 
ing aversion to any species of pomp and display at 
their funeral animated both, and the very words by 
which Horace expressed his wishes upon this subject, 
most exactly express the injunction upon that subject 
Imposed upon his family by our American poet. 

Absint inani funere nrenia;, 
Luctusque turpes, et querimonije : 
Compesce clamorem, ac sepulcri, 
Mitte supervacuos honores.* 

His wishes were carefully studied. W^ith the sim- 
plest ceremonies of the church of which he was at 
once a pillar and an ornament, conducted by the pas- 
tor whose hands had been used to break to him the 
bread of life, and on one of the loveliest days of flow- 
ery June that the sun of Long Island ever shed its 
golden light upon, his mortal remains were consigned 
to their last resting-place, beside the tomb of her, 
whose disembodied spirit 

" Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same," 

his had already joined. He seemed to leave this 
world with no wish, no ambition unsatisfied. His life 
showed no trace of disappointment. He had never 
allowed himself to desire what it did not please the 
Master to send to him, nor to repine for anything that 
was denied him. " Thy will be done," was the daily 
prayer, not only of his lips but of his heart and life. 

* Hor. Carm. 2, xvii. 



6o 

Mr. Bryant used to say that a gentleman should 
never talk of his love affairs or of his religion. So far 
as I know, he practiced as he preached. There was 
no subject which for many years appeared to occupy 
more of his thoughts than religion, none about which 
he seemed more willing to listen, but of his own spirit- 
ual experiences he was singularly reticent. I do not 
remember to have ever heard him define his creed 
upon any point of theology, or give utterance to a 
single dogma ; neither do I believe such an utterance 
can be found in any of his writings ; though so pro- 
found were his religious feelings and convictions, that 
they found expression in a series of exquisite devo- 
tional hymns, which I trust may some day be given 
to the public. In matters of religion, his modesty was 
as conspicuous as in everything else ; he was never 
betrayed into citing his own example or his own opin- 
ions as an authority to anyone else. 

But it maybe asked, had this '' inonstriim pcij^cc- 
iionis " no faults ? Bryant was born to the same sin- 
ful inheritance as the rest of us ; but I can say of him 
with perfect truth, that with his faults he was always 
at war. No one better than he, knew the enemies 
with which the human heart is always besieged ; the 
enemies of his own household ; and few men ever 
fought them more valiantly, more persistently or 



6i 

more successfully. Those who only knew him in his 
later years would scarcely believe that he had been 
endowed by nature with a very quick and passionate 
temper. He never entirely overcame it, but he held 
every impulse of his nature to such a rigorous ac- 
countability, that few have ever suspected the strug- 
gles with which he purchased the self-control which 
constituted one of the conspicuous graces of his char- 
acter. Bryant had his faults, but he made of them 
agents of purification. He learned from them humility 
and faith ; a wise distrust of himself, and an unfalter- 
inor trust in Him, throuo^h whose aid he was strength- 
ened to keep them in abeyance. By God's help he 
converted the tears of his angels into pearls. 

It was this constant and successful warfare upon 
every unworthy and degrading propensity that sought 
an asylum in his heart, that made him such a moral 
force in the country, that invested any^ occasion to 
which he lent his presence with an especial dignity ; 
that gave to his personal example a peculiar power 
and authority. No one could be much in the society 
of Brvaxt without feeling more respect for himself, 
without beine conscious that his better nature had 
been awakened to a higher activity ; without an in- 
creased reluctance to say or do anything which Bryant 
himself under similar circumstances would probably 
not have said or 4one. 



62 

Though not at all i^ivcn io speak of himsc-ll or of 
his own hal;iLs or nicLhods of life as a ^uide for others, 
the radiance of his examiile had a pecuhar efficacy. 
Like the shadow of St. l\^ter, upon whomsoever it Icll 
it seemed to exert a healing" influence. In that hri^iit 
exampl<- h'- still lives. I o a lile so hill ol wisdom and 
virtue, so complete and synmietrical, there is change, 
th(tre is growth, hut there is no death. The allrihutes 
of ( iod arc impoishahlc 



63 



POEM BY R. H. STODDARD, 



THE DEAD MASTER. 

It is appointed unto man to die. 

Where Life is Death is, dominating Life, 

Wresting the scepter from its feeble grasp. 

And trampling on itsr dust. From the first hour 

When the first child upon its mother's breast 

Lay heavily, with no breath on its cold lips, 

To the last hour \Yhen the last man shall die, 

And the race be extinct — Death never came, 

Xor will come, without apprehension. 

The dying ma\' be ready to depart, 

For sleep and death are one to them ; but we 

Who love them, and survive them — unto whom 

The places they once filled are filled no more, 

For whom a light has gone out of the sun, 

A shadow fallen on noonday, — unto us, 

Who love our dead, Death always comes too soon, 

A consternation, and a lamentation. 



'] lu" sorrow ol all ^.ol'^o\\•s, till in liirii 
We fulluw l1u:iii, ;iikI uLIicis mourn [i)V us. 



Iliis lrai;ic lesson ol niorl.ilil \' 

I he Master who halli lell us learned in \()U(h, 

When the Muse lound him wandeiin*; l)\ the stream 

That s|)arkle«l, siuLMii^, at his lather's door — 

The Inst Mu;.e whom the New World, lo\ ini^' lon.i;', 

Wooed in Hie deplhs ol her old solitude. 

'Hie s^'reeii, untioddcn, woild wide wilderness 

Sui'rendered lo the soul ol this )()unL; man 

The secret ol its silence. C'enturies passed ; 

The red man chased the deei', and tracheal the hear 

'10 lus hi^h mountain den hut he came not. 

The white man followed ; the L-reat woods were felled, 

And in th(> cleaiin^s cottage smokes ai'ose, 

i\u(\ fields were white with har\( sis : he came not. 

I he New WOrld waited lor him, and the woi'ds 
Wdiich should dishui'thai th(> dumb m\slei'y 

I'hat dark(Mietl its sti'anm' lile wh(Mi summer da\s 
Steeped the ^reen houidiswith li<^ht,and winter nights 
Looked down like 1 )(>ath upon the d(>ad. old world; 
I'or what was Mai'th hut the j^reat tomh ol luan, 
And suns and planets but sepuKhial urns 
I'illed with the awlul ash(>s of the Past '^ 



65 



Such was i1h- firsl s;i(l message to mankind 
0( this yoiiii;.' pocl, who was never yoiniL^, 
So h<-;i,vily the old hii|-(l(n o( ihf l'!arlli 
\/\M-i;di<(l (,n his soul hoiu l>oyhoo(L Y't not less, 
Not less, hill inorr, he loved her; lor iT she. 
Was sonihre with her secret, she was still 
l>eaiitifiil as a f^oddess ; and if \](t 
Should one d;iy look upon Ii'-r lace no iin'ivt, 
lie would not cease to look till th;it day ( aine ; 
kor he loi- lile was dedicate to her, 
i he inspiration o( his earliest sonj'', 
'1 he happy inenior) oi his sterner years, 
\ he consolation (jf his ripe, (jld a^e. 
What slu: was to the eyes of lesser men, 
Which only glance at the roiicjli husk ol lliim(s, 
She never was to him ; hut day and ni;jht 
A ]f)veliness, a mi;^h,t, a. mystery, 
A iVesence never wholly understood, 
'1 he krok'-ii shadow of some unknown l^>wer, 
Which overflows all forms, hut is not I'orm — 
The inscriitakle Spirit of the I inverse! 
Ili;(h priest whose, t.r:niple was the woods, he fell, 
'kheir melancholy grandeur, and the awe 
'1 hat ancientness and sr)litude keiL^et, 
Stran^^e i!itimat.Ions of invisikk; things, 
Which, while they seeni to sadden, ;^ive delight, 



66 

And hurt not, but persuade the soul to prayer : 
For, silent in the barren ways of men, 
Under green roofs of overhanging boughs, 
Where the Creator's hands are never stayed, 
The soul recovers her forgotten speech, 
The lost religion of her infancy. 



Nature hath sacred seasons of her own, 
And reverent poets to interpret them. 
But she hath other singers, unto whom 
The twinkle of a dew-drop in the grass. 
The sudden singing of an unseen bird, 
The pensive brightness of the evening star. 
Are revelations of a loveliness 
For which there is no language known to man. 
Except the eloquent language of the eye, 
Hushed with the fulness of her happiness ! 
What may be known of these recondite things 
Our grave, sweet poet knew : for unto him 
The Goddess of the Earth revealed herself 
As to no other poet of the time. 
Save only him who slumbers at Grasmere, 
His Brother, — not his Master. From the hour 
When first he wandered by his native stream 
To crop the violets growing on its banks. 



6; 

And list to the brown thrasher's vernal hymn, 

To the last hour of his long, honored life, 

He never faltered in his love of Nature. 

Recluse with men, her dear society, 

Welcome at all times, savored of content, 

Brightened his happy moments, and consoled 

His hours of gloom. A student of the woods 

And of the fields, he was their calendar, — 

Knew when the first pale wind-flower would appear. 

And when the last wild-fowl would take its flight ; 

Where the cunning squirrel had his granary. 

And where the industrious bee had stored her sweets. 

Go where he would, he was not solitary, 

Flowers nodded gayly to nim — wayside brooks 

Slipped by him laughingly, while the emulous birds 

Showered lyric raptures that provoked his own. 

The winds were his companions on the hills — 

The clouds, and thunders — and the glorious Sun, 

Whose bright beneficence sustains the world, — 

A visible symbol of the Omnipotent, 

Whom not to worship were to be more blind 

Than those of old who worshipped stocks and stones. 



I Who loves and lives with Nature tolerates 

I Baseness in nothing ; high and solemn thoughts 



68 

Are his, — clean deeds and honorable life. 

If he be poet, as our Master was. 

His song will be a mighty argument, 

Heroic in its structure to support 

The weight of the world forever ! All great things 

Are native to it, as the Sun to Heaven. 

Such was thy song, O Master ! and such fame 

As only the kings of thought receive, is thine ; 

Be happy with it in thy larger life 

Where Time" is not, and the sad word — Farewell ! 



69 



POEM BY E. C. STEDMAN 



THE DEATH OF BRYANT. 

How was It then with Nature when the soul 

Of her own poet heard a \'oIce which came 
From out the void, " Thou art no lontrer lent 
To Earth ! " when that Incarnate spirit, blent 
With the abiding- force of wa\-es that roll. 

Wind-cradled vapors, circling stars that flame. 
She did recall ? How went 
His antique shade, beaconed upon its way 
Through the still aisles of night to universal day ? 



Her voice it was, her sovereio^n voice, which bade 
The Earth resolve his elemental mould ; 

And once more came her summons : " Long, too long. 

Thou llngerest, and charmest with thy song ! 

Return ! return ! " Thus Nature spoke, and made 
Her sign ; and forthwith on the minstrel old 
An arrow, brio^ht and strono^, 



70 

Fell from the bent bow of the answering Sun, 

Who cried, " The soncr Is closed, the Invocation done! 



But not as for those youths dead ere their prime, 

New-entered on their music's high domain, 
Then snatched away, did all things sorrow own : 
No utterance now like that sad sweetest tone 
When Blon died, and the Sicilian rhyme 

Bewailed; no sobbing of the reeds that plain, 
Rehearsing some last moan 
Of Lycldas ; no strains which skyward swell 
For Adonals still, and still for Astrophel ! 



The Muses wept not for him as for those 

Of whom each vanished like a beauteous star 

Quenched ere the shining midwatch of the night ; 

The greenwood Nymphs mourned not his lost delight. 

Nor Echo, hidden in the tangled close, 

Grie\'ed that she could not mimic him afar. 
He ceased not from our sight 

Like him who. In the first glad flight of Spring, 

Fell as an eagle pierced with shafts from his own wing. 



This was not Thyrsis ! no, the minstrel lone 
And reverend, the woodland sing-er hoar, 
Who was dear Nature's nursling-, and the priest 
Whom most she loved ; nor had his office ceased 
But for her mandate : " Seek again thine own ; 
The walks of men shall draw thy steps no more 
Softly, as from a feast 
The guest departs that hears a low recall, 
He went, and left behind his harp and coronal. 



" Return / " she cried, " unto thine own return ! 

Too long the pilgrimage ; too long the dream 
In which, lest thou shouldst be companionless, 
Unto the oracles thou hadst access, — 
The sacred groves that with my presence yearn." 

The voice was heard by mountain, dell, and 
stream, 

Meadow and wilderness, — 
All fair things vestured by the changing year, 
Which now awoke in joy to welcome one most dear. 

'' He comes ! " declared the unseen ones that haunt 

The dark recesses, the infinitude 
Of whispering old oaks and soughing pines. 
" He comes ! " the warders of the forest shrines 



72 

Sang joyously, " His spirit ministrant 

Henceforth witli us shall walk the underwood, 
I'ill mortal ear divines 
Its music added to our choral hymn, 
Rising and falling far through archways deep and dim! 



The orchard fields, the hill-side jjastures green, 

Put gladness on ; the rippling harvest-wave 
Ran like a smile, as if a moment there 
His shadow poised in the midsummer air 
Above ; the cataract took a pearly sheen 
Even as It leapt ; the winding river gave 
A sound of welcome where 
He came, and tremljled, far as to the sea 
It moves from rock-ribbed heights where its dark 
fountains be. 



His presence brooded on the rolling plain, 

And on the lake there fell a sudden calm, — 
His own tranrjullllty ; the mountain bowed 
Its head, and felt the coolness of a cloud, 
And murmured, " He is passing ! " and again 
Through all Its firs the wind swept like a psalm ; 
Its eagles, thunder-browed, 



73 

In that mist-moulded shape their kinsman knew, 
And circled hieh, and in his mantle soared tVcMii \'iew. 



So drew he to the living- veil, which lum^- 
0( old above the deep's unimaged lace. 

And sought his own. Henceforward he is free 

Of vassalage to that mortality 

Which men have gi>'en a sepulchre among 
The pathwa)s of their kind, — a resting-place 
Where, bending one great knee. 

Knelt the proud mother of a niight)' land 

In tenderness, and came anon a plumed band. 



Came one by one the Seasons, meetl\' drest, 

To sentinel the relics of their seer. 
Vlvst Spring — upon whose head a wreath was set 
Of wind-flowers and the )'ellow violet — 
Advanced. Then Summer led his lo\eliest 

Of months, one ever to the minstrel dear 
(Her sweet eyes dew)- wet), 
June, and ht^r sisters, whose brown hands entwine 
The brier-rose and the beediaunted columbine. 



74 

Next, Autumn, like a monarch sad of heart, 

Came, tended by his melancholy days. 
Purple he wore, and bore a golden rod, 
His sceptre ; and let fall upon the sod 
A lone fringed-gentian ere he would depart. 

Scarce had his train gone darkling down the ways 
When Winter thither trod, — 
Winter, with beard and raiment blown before. 
That was so seeming like our poet old and hoar. 



What forms are these amid the pageant fair 

Harping with hands that falter? WMiat sad throng? 
They wait in vain, a mournful brotherhood. 
And listen where their laurelled elder stood 
For some last music fallen through the air. 

" What cold, thin atmosphere now hears thy song?" 
They ask, and long have wooed 
The woods and waves that knew him, but can learn 
Naught save the hollow, haunting cry, " Rehcrn ! re- 

1 217^1 ! " 



i 



MEMORIAL MEETING 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 



o 



"THE CENTURY" 







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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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